Ingress AMA Archive

A1: Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to get an answer to this question by the time I wanted to publish the AMA. The Engineering Team did acknowledge that they are aware of the issue and it is on their list of things to address though.

A2: This has been asked and answered many times. But since this is the first time it has been asked on the forums it would be good to answer it again. There are no immediate plans to add new levels. The priority at the moment is feature parity and upgrading the servers to use the Niantic Platform. HOWEVER -- we have absolutely talked about it. We recognize there will be a need at some point in time. We have brainstormed ideas on what that looks like. It is, in my opinion, inevitable that it will occur. I just cannot provide a timeline as to when.

A3: It is roughly split pretty even. This includes our own staff as well.

A4: Our Engineering Team confirmed that this is currently in development and being worked on. So we are close. I don’t have a specific date or version number unfortunately. I’m also told, a lot of small improvements will also come at the same time as part of the previously mentioned User Interface rework that is underway. I’m told it is officially called “UI Update 1”. Yes, there will be follow-on updates as well. Tentatively, UI Update 1 will be delivered with the 2.27 software update. Of course, I have to provide the disclaimer that this may change. But it should happen within the next month or two.

A5: This has been forwarded to our Engineering team.

A6: I’m told by our Engineering Team that Ingress already includes all the textures and assets with the exception of profile badges and Portal images.

A7: I double checked on this but unfortunately higher priorities have bumped it and there are some server changes I’m told that will be required which are not yet completed.

A8: You can post your feedback here: https://community.in...

A9: There are no plans to create a second Enlightened branded version of the scanner. That being said, the developers have confirmed that some of the visuals are being tweaked as part of the User Interface rework (UI Update 1) that is underway and will be coming in the next month or two. This will shift things from blue to more of a purple.

A10: This is not something we plan to implement.

A11: Actually, yes! I don’t think many of these types of features will come to Ingress until the backend server upgrade has been completed. But there is no shortage of ideas. What if the AR camera enabled you to see XM substrate or another dimension that enabled different interactions than when your AR camera wasn’t on? Imagine having to battle an Exogenous creature in AR but because it is moving around it requires you to change your position, orientation, or location?

A12: The recruiter badge needs to be overhauled. I don’t think it’s been killed off entirely. But the old mechanic isn’t going to be used anymore and that’s why it no longer works.

A13: I personally like these ideas. Our Engineering Team points out that from a technical standpoint it would be quite an expensive and potentially volatile feature. Portal ownership and health can change at a moments notice. So the key data you loaded when you viewed the key may not be current a second later. To keep it updated would require constant pinging of the Portal status. Which, on an individual level may not be an issue. But we have a lot more than one individual playing the game. I’m told there might be some clever ways to address this with the new servers but it still won’t change the fact that as a live real-world game, anything can happen at a moments notice.

A14: Like many of these other questions, I’m not sure anything like this will be implemented until the backend server upgrade is complete or near complete. But, as we look to the future of what we want Ingress gameplay to be, we have had many of these conversations already. So while there is no set feature like this that has been designed that I can say will be implemented. We have explored many similar ideas and I’m excited to see what gets implemented in the coming years.

A15: Please continue to voice your concerns on our community forums.

A16: Can you elaborate a little more on this with a post in the community forums and tag myself along with NianticScot? Is it the wavy Portal images? The map that rotates via the dynamic compass? Something else? A combination of all things?

A17: I think a search button would be good. We also have discussed internally the idea of being able to share a mission. The share feature would contain a deeplink directly to the mission. For a Mission Day or Ingress First Saturday, this would allow organizers to publish a list of missions in advance so you don’t have to search for them. This isn’t currently on the roadmap to be implemented any time soon as feature parity is still our focus. But hopefully sometime shortly thereafter.

A18: It is certainly possible. I know people like to collect the Anomaly and Ingress First Saturday media. I’ll pass this along. Thanks for bringing it up.

A19: This is one of those personal preference issues. Admittedly, it is a low priority to implement at the moment. When implementing and testing things originally, the feedback was that without it you didn’t know when to start the Glyph tracing. So a request was to add an indicator. However, since its initial implementation, our Design Team has made some enhancements to it. Mainly moving it out of the way to not cover the Glyph area. They will also review it as part of the UI Update 2 set of improvements they plan on doing once the current round is complete. They added that we could test making it faster or adding a tap action to skip it all together. So… more to come.

A20: Yes. Eventually. I don’t know what the initial implementation will be. There have been a lot of conversations about making it a more robust feature than what was previously in REDACTED by adding the ability to perhaps download your profile into a .csv file or something that would allow you to do creative things with it.

A21: The entire purpose of the Prime upgrade is to provide a roadmap for long-term success for Ingress. Ingress was a proof-of-concept idea that quite frankly wasn’t initially supposed to last this long. The concept, however, proved to be wildly successful. But that proof-of-concept design has limitations and restrictions that are barriers for Ingress really reaching its fullest potential. So things had to change. With very few exceptions, we aren't able to add any new items or mechanics to the game. Improved security, anti-cheat, and enabling new gameplay are all things that will come with Prime that are not possible in REDACTED. When I look at Harry Potter: Wizards Unite and see some of the things they’ve implemented like skill trees, crafting, the Portkey AR experience, and a whole host of other features… it gets me excited to think about how we can bring those to Ingress. I know there is a sentimental factor attached to REDACTED. But the gameplay hasn’t significantly changed in years and I don’t think people really want that limited experience for another seven years.

A22: We are working on one currently. I don’t have a date for when it will be published. But we want to do those more regularly and on a specific and expected schedule.

A23: The UI rework shouldn’t impact the retirement of REDACTED. They are not dependent on one another. UI improvements can and will occur over the life cycle of Ingress.

A24: There are plans to update things. We do not publish our schedule or announce when to prevent abuse of OSM though. If you are making contributions to OSM, thank you. But you aren’t just benefitting Ingress. You benefit all the products that use it and the overall OSM community.

A25: We are currently working on this. The ultimate solve will come with the new servers I’m told by our Engineering Team. In the meantime, we are exploring what we can do client side and the team has this as a task.

A26: I think we can all agree that the current Intel map is less than ideal. While there are no plans that I am aware of in the short-term currently to change things, we do have long-term plans. Right now the team is focused on the client (the Ingress Prime app) and the servers as the higher priorities though.

A27: Our Ingress Product Manager (PM) has talked about this a lot. We recognize and encourage people to use Ingress as an enabler for having awesome adventures. This includes going to unique places that may not have the best cell phone reception. However, this isn’t how the majority of players use and experience the game. So while we intend to make improvements, it’s not at the top of the priority list. I think more players would rather have a robust profile sharing feature first, for example. But we are aware of the concern and the limitations in low-signal situations and will continue to iterate on things to try to make it a better experience.

A28: Our team says, “In a normal Portal interaction, only the thumbnail in the upper right (next to the portal title) should load. Then when you hit charge it no longer shows. So in normal portal interaction, we should just load that single image. If you are remote recharging from Portal Keys, those thumbnails will load but should be cached on the device after the first time you access the key.” They are going to look into this though and see what improvements can be made.

A29: Unfortunately, this is another instance that when you think of things individually it doesn’t seem like a big deal. But when you scale the action to the size of our playerbase, it actually has pretty significant impacts. So there is a delicate balancing act our Engineering Team does in weighing the cost/benefit of actions like this. As I understand it, there are no current plans to tweak this further.

A30: The development team is making amazing progress in addressing data and performance issues. 2.25.2 that was just released as a good example of that. They also dramatically decreased the initial load time too. Geo-location games like Ingress are always going to be more battery hungry then using an app like Twitter. But we will continue to tweak and optimize things.

A31: I like this idea. Maybe being able to bookmark your eight favorite keys for quick access. I will pass this along.

A32: No. Wear OS support is not planned at this time.

A33: No. We do not currently have any intel suggesting any persons of interest will be present at any event.

A34: I have been informed that the only Mission Days for European cities will be the ones on the Sunday after an Anomaly. There will not be any standalone Mission Days.

A35: There are no plans to revert the design of the medal.

A36: I am great thanks for asking. I believe we have identified the cause of the problem for the June Ingress First Saturdays. We are doing our best to ensure it does not happen for July and are exploring backups or safeguards that we can put in place should things fail again.

A37: Our Events Team informs me that the first Field Test event will most likely be in September, with more information (including city application instructions) in July.

A38: I’ve confirmed with our team that while Operation Ko Lan has concluded, there may be other Prime Challenges in the future. Not before 2020, however.

A39: Certainly! The goal is to have some sort of regular (monthly) events that are tied to the overall Nemesis sequence. We plan to announce the first of these very… soon.

A40: The Events Team understands the desire to have these early and they try to get these finalized as soon as possible. Sometimes other projects take priority and there are also strategic reasons, but we know that these are important to Agents for many reasons. As I understand it from further conversations, the events after Myriad should be ready sooner as the team is working to get ahead of things.

A41: Our events lead says, “We'd definitely like to offer this, and it's on the list of items to consider adding after we reopen the Ingress store. Knowing what IngressFS organizers specifically want for their First Saturdays will definitely help us figure out what to offer.”

A42: Unfortunately, this is not something we intend to do.

A43: This has not been determined yet.

A44: Anomaly series for July and October will only happen on a single day. Anomalies in general though are something that constantly change based on a number of different factors. I wouldn’t feel comfortable speculating on what will happen in the future. Yes, the plan is currently to have more medals like the Osiris Victory medal.

A45: Yes.

A46: We are exploring a lot of different ideas with Anomalies and how to make them scalable but still provide an impact. Anomalies are currently the only official Faction versus Faction events hosted by Niantic that you can earn an in game medal for participating in. We recognize the significance of them.

A47: Myriad and Umbra do not have primary locations so there will not be an official Niantic after party at any of those locations.

A48: Nothing has been confirmed yet.

A49: Off-site participation (remote recharging and Intel operator support) has not changed. You can still be eligible for a medal for those specific roles by coordinating with the Anomaly city Points Of Contact (POCs).

A50: We’ve actually talked about this very recently. I am supportive of it and think it is a great idea to rotate things or even have the regions have events on different weekends. I don’t think things will change for July or October. But perhaps in 2020.

A51: The Anomaly format, schedule, amount of events, rules, are all very flexible. For July and October there is only one weekend with events. What happens in the future is anyone’s guess.

A52: I don’t think we want Agents trying to game the system. If people participating don’t have a solid foundational understanding of what makes a Portal nomination a good one, is it really in everyone’s best interest to grant them access to the system just because they knew how to answer the questions and pass the test? In my opinion, no, it is not.

A53: I wasn’t able to get this one answered in time. But I did log it and passed it on to the team. From my outsider non-engineer perspective, this seems like a reasonable request.

A54: You can one-star the candidate and choose either Portal Criteria >> Does Not Meet Criteria or Abuse to report these cases.

A55: This is being discussed internally with the OPR Team as a possible future feature. But at this time we do not have a timeline to share.

A56: I’m told this should no longer be an issue but NIA OPS will review your account to see if something was isn’t happening as it should.

A57: NIA OPS says, “Currently, you can report these by one-staring the candidate and choosing Abuse.”

A58: I wasn’t able to get an update on this in time. But please ask it again so I can follow-up on it. I’ve also logged it and will see if I can get a status update. If I can, I’ll update this thread.

A59: According to NIA OPS, if you have used up all your attempts to take the test, you won’t get another attempt when you Recurse. We recommend reviewing the training materials before you take the test to ensure you make the most of each attempt.

A60: The OPR Team says, we are working on flagging bad edits in OPR. Until then, please use the Help Center to report these issues.

A61: I’ll share this with the team.

A62: NIA OPS replied that, they agree with the community’s decision. Swimming pools do not fall under the same category of exercise equipment in a park and would not be considered eligible unless it had historical or cultural significance.

A63: It would be hard to comment on this without an example. In general, if the signs have educational content, they can be considered valid candidates.

A64: I am told that, the photo from a duplicate candidate is added to the existing Portal to give credit to the other player(s) who have submitted the same candidate. At this time, there are no plans of changing this but we would love to hear any concerns you may have with this feature.

A65: The response from NIA OPS is, businesses that offer postal services will not meet the criteria for Post Offices and should be evaluated based on historical/cultural value, community significance, or distinctive architecture.

A66: The OPR Team explains it this way. Since the reviewer is moving the marker to the verified location, it’s recorded as being accurate. If you are unsure of where the Portal candidate is actually located, rate the location questions accordingly instead of moving the marker to an unverified/inaccurate location.

A67: Yes, we have been removing links in specific cases too.

A68: The FAQs for Portal and Pokestop nominations include the same content. The OPR version includes a few additional notes based on questions from the reviewers. We do plan to consolidate these FAQs and make the reviewers version available to all players.

A69: NIA OPS recommendation is to rate each category based on the criteria mentioned in the guide. If you are able to verify the right location, use the ‘Suggest a new Location’ option to move the marker to the accurate location.

A70: Another good idea that I’ve passed along to the team. Although, I’m not sure how that would work if there are no live Portals at the time of the submission. Basing things off of existing submissions may not be the best idea as some submissions may not be acceptable candidates. Something we need to think about though.

A71: NIA OPS replied, the best way to avoid getting a Mission rejected for copyright issues is to use an image that you’ve created/taken. In addition, make sure the Mission image is relevant to the Mission content (title/description and waypoints chosen).

A72: No. NIA OPS made a public post about this on Google+ about two years or so ago I believe. It is considered falsifying your location.

A73: Players are not required to interact with anyone or make themselves known publicly. Nor should there be any gatekeepers to playing Ingress or forcing functions for people to out themselves. In fact, if we are being honest, it was long-term veteran Agents that submitted less than desirable Portal candidates causing the Portal system to be clogged and resources being spent having to deal with those instead of processing valid Portal nominations. So I don’t think an Agent’s level or age of an account are, by themselves, indicators that the person would be qualified to pass judgement on others. I also think that focusing on someone’s motivation for playing or their play style is unhealthy. Ingress can be played many different ways. Where do you draw the line? There are people who only like to do fields. There are Agents who only like to create missions. To get to level ten, the player had to take some sort of in-game actions. Those actions create AP opportunities for the other faction and help fortify Portals for the same faction. If your attempts to reach out to them have not been met with a reply, accept the fact they don’t want to play your style of Ingress and move on. If they are submitting Portal nominations once they reach level ten, that seems like a good opportunity to participate in OPR in that area to help ensure what they are submitting are quality nominations and to bolster the Portal network in your city. If you don’t like OPR and don’t want to participate in it, you don’t have to. But you shouldn’t stop others from doing so. Even if they have ulterior motives. Ultimately, you’ll benefit from their actions in some way.

A74: In theory and in a perfect world, I think this is a bad idea. I don’t have to be level 16 to see that a Portal is in the wrong location. With that being said, there is a noticeable trend when it comes to Portal edit submissions. So this is currently under review. I cannot provide more details than that at this time.

A75: This is actively being worked upon but at this time but I’m told there isn’t a timeline that can be shared. We recognize the issue and the frustrations of Agents experiencing it. So it is not a low priority for us.

A76: I don’t believe there is a direct correlation to Unique Missions Completed and an Agents ability to create good Missions. I’m told that at this time, there are no plans to increase the Mission limit.

A77: Thanks for flagging this. NIA OPS is reviewing your actions to determine what happened and where things in the process can be improved.

A78: NIA OPS says, the Agent Protocol section mentions the actions that may be taken against a TOS violation. https://niantic.help...

A79: The OPR team has access and may use the information to evaluate abuse reports.

A80: As mentioned in the post about this topic, Scanner REDACTED is not compatible with Android Q and other beta OS. NIA OPS also says, all appeals have been reviewed and eligible accounts have been reinstated.

A81: Without more details it’s hard to comment on this question. If the Portal in question was in fact in the wrong location to begin with, then it shouldn’t have been used for a mission and would have ideally been reported immediately. If the Portal was in the correct location, but you believe the location edit was malicious, that should be reported to NIA OPS. Ideally, location edits are only made to Portals that are in the wrong location and the team is investigating ways to curb abuse of edits.

A82: For the purposes of submitting a Portal, they are acceptable areas. Portals on single-family private residential property are not allowed.

A83: Yes, you can choose a new Faction each time you Recurse.

A84: The forums have been a fantastic way to concentrate feedback and interactions. Many of our employees are active on the forums and even those that are not actively posting read them frequently. I actually kind of wish we had them years ago so players had a social network agnostic place to comment and share their Ingress experiences on. I’m excited to see how it grows.

A85: I need to get used to doing them on here. Unlike on G+ there isn’t a really easy way to dump all the questions that I’ve found -- yet. So it’s taken me a bit longer than I would have liked to process them. But now I know and I’m sure the next time it’ll go faster. I do like the fact we will have one central place for them that will be easily searchable.

A86: Not a bad idea. Let me talk with the team.

A87: As I understand it, that is the goal.

A88: Perhaps. We have a Japanese language forum. It’s a matter of scale and resources at the moment.

A89: Yes. We’ll be adding features and tweaking the design over time.

A90: We don’t anticipate this to be a feature any time soon. I’d rather we follow Blizzard’s World of Warcraft model where your forums profile is populated from your account profile. It also adds a bit of accountability, transparency, and potentially weight to comments made by people.

A91: I have seen it and think it is a neat thing for players to use.

A92: This has been a topic of conversation recently. I don’t think we are at the point where we can allow this yet as it would require near constant moderation and approval for legal reasons.

A93: Let me bring this up and see what we can do.

A94: I’ve been calling it the Ingress Community Forums. The Ingress Community, to me, is the players.

A95: What suggestions would you have?

A96: Sadly, I lost it on day 105 due to some personal reasons. It was a good run. Longer than I anticipated and I appreciated all the support.

A97: At this time, there are no plans for a volume five.

A98: Can you reach out to me with your ticket id? NIA OPS told me they have processed refunds for everyone who contacted them.

A99: We will find out in time.

A100: I enjoy Reddit. I browse the front page daily. That said, I think I’m going to reduce the amount of engagement I have there and focus on here a bit more. But, I’ll still have a presence there and plan on interact with folks from time to time. As far as sponsorships go, some ideas have been kicked around but that’s about it. Also, I would probably get in trouble if I spilled the beans before a deal was made official. I don’t believe at this time there is anything on the short term horizon though. Perhaps once the new servers are in place and we can start offering new experiences and game play mechanics.

A101: This isn’t something I could answer in an AMA. We have so many departments and people. It’s just like any other company. For me personally, as the Global Community Manager I have a lot of meetings with various departments as I’m the internal advocate of the players and provide strategic feedback through that lens. This can include policy decisions, new game mechanic ideas, social media campaigns, events, etc. I also do a lot of one-on-one interactions via various chat platforms with players and manage the various community programs we have as well like the Vanguard Program. It is a lot of communication, gathering feedback, informing decisions, etc. I wish I had the opportunity to play Ingress more. But I’m satisfied with the change I’ve been able to influence over the last three and a half years as a result of not being able to open my scanner as much as I would like.

A102: There was nothing in the rules or the mechanics of Ingress that prohibited it. We could debate whether it was in the spirit of the game or not. But that’s almost irrelevant and likely to be a circular conversation as it was not forbidden.

A103: It is one of priorities. There is a plan to do more with merchandise sales. Some of the new things I believe will start rolling out with Myriad series. Ultimately, we need to reach feature parity with Prime and complete the server upgrade first though. We want the product to be in a place and position that will set us up for long-term success. It won’t help Ingress to sell merchandise if the player base starts to decline and there isn’t anything new to get excited about.

A104: I’m happy to hear that Vanguards are helping the community. But that is not their role or the intent of the program. The purpose of the Vanguards are to be a player advocacy group for Niantic. I suppose by doing that, they are helping the community. But I suspect you mean they are helping in other ways. Niantic does not view Vanguards as community leaders. Although, I know several of them fill that role within their factions. Vanguards have no special influence of power over NIA OPS. They cannot review tickets, get someone banned by their word alone, or have any additional understanding of how tickets are adjudicated and processed that has not been made public by NIA OPS. As a sounding board for Niantic and player advocacy group, they have done a tremendous job. Their feedback on a number of issues has been critical for us to make better informed decisions. They don’t always agree with our decisions and they don’t always agree amongst themselves. Which is fine. That’s exactly the purpose they serve. To present their various opinions on any number of topics. I struggle with wanting more transparency with the program but also respecting their privacy and not wanting to put them in a position where they have a target on their back or have to defend themselves to people who don’t agree with them -- or like them. You can please some of the people all of the time, you can please all of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all of the people all of the time. Ultimately, I’ve sided with being more conservative and less transparent. This strategy seems to enable a more free exchange of ideas and conversations while protecting their right to express themselves and their opinions how they feel comfortable with. We will be expanding the Vanguard program in the next month and growing it from 24 Agents to 36 and potentially 48 the next year or two. The Vanguards also voted to have term limits so some of them will be rotating out at the end of the year in order to make way for new people. I look forward to what the future has in store for this program. So far, it’s been a great success.

A105: Ingress is the only game that is completely owned by Niantic. All the various intellectual property owners would have to come together and agree to things. I don’t think that is likely or needed.

A106: You should contact our legal department at legal@nianticlabs.com. I am not in the proper position to provide guidance on such a topic.

A107: Much like the busgressing event at the Chicago Anomaly, if there is nothing in the rules or game mechanics that prevent it, it seems acceptable.

A108: If Portals meet the criteria then I wouldn’t consider them trash. The density of Portals has limits. So if Portals are being created then, no, the density isn’t too high.

A109: I am happy to report that Ingress Agents are stuck with me for the foreseeable future. The role posted on our job website is for the corporate Niantic brand and not a specific product. You will be able to burn my bio cards for many years to come.

A110: The Anime takes place in a separate universe then the one you and I live in. I don’t know that we fully understand how the universes interact yet and what the cause and effect of events in the multiverse have on each other.

A111: Sadly, I am not. But I look forward to lots of pictures and SITREPs posted to the community forums.

A112: I’ll have to reach out to my contacts to see if I can alert the VI group about this. Thanks for flagging it.

A113: I’ll pass the message along to P.A. Chapeau next time I see him. He seems to know everyone. I have no contact with Santa or I would ask him why I got water purification tablets and two ball point pens when I was 13 instead of Transformers. Also, I hear Rudolph is a bit of a prima donna.

A114: Long-term, I would love to figure out a more automated solution. Short-term, everyone is focused on feature parity and server upgrades. So we will have to endure the current process a bit longer.

A115: Thank you. I appreciate it a lot. I do what I do because of the players. I understand the power of Ingress beyond just being a mobile game. I love seeing what it enables for people in the real world. There is life that exists on Earth because two people met playing Ingress. That is powerful.

A116: As we build up our server capacity for the Prime upgrade, there is a line item in the budget to purchase six additional hamsters. The good news is that our Engineering Team tells me, “We expect this pain to go away with the new servers.”

A117: I am great. Thank you for asking. I too enjoyed the after party very much. That was the second time I visited the Netherlands. I was there for the Deventer Mission Day and spent some time in Amsterdam before and after. It feels odd to admit, but yes, that was my first European Anomaly experience. Overall, I think the event was an amazing success. I did not get a chance to play in the Amsterdam Anomaly due to logistics. But I was impressed with the factions, their organization, and how they communicated everything to the players. I loved the fact that there was so much cross-faction love and people stayed very late, mingled and talked into the early hours of the morning. I will not forget that experience any time soon.

A118: Ingress players are not shy about sharing their opinions. I don’t think you need to directly communicate with a Niantic employee to ensure your position is heard. Even if we don’t comment on everything, we read the majority of the posts on the forums, Reddit, and social media. Our Community Managers are also human beings. They are going to have good days and they are going to have bad days. Ingress players are also human beings and are very passionate about Ingress. As a result, most of the feedback our Community Managers receive on a daily basis comes from a well intentioned place. But the feedback is often more negative in tone then positive. All of the Community Managers are also players. So they understand the frustrations Agents experience -- they experience it too. Communication is a tricky thing that can be further complicated by people using a common language that is not either person’s native language (usually English). So, it doesn’t surprise me that things don't always go well. To expect that it would is just not reasonable. I don’t think things not going well is a common experience. I also don’t think players or community managers generally express themselves with the intention to hurt or offend the other person. Also, where things tend to break down is when people come to a conversation with predetermined expectations of an output or result. That also isn’t reasonable. Provide constructive feedback. But don’t expect that every time you do, that change will occur as a result or a specific set of outcomes will happen. We all want the same thing and that is to make Ingress better. Keeping that in mind is important to successful communication. I don’t think the level of staffing is an issue for what we are trying to accomplish as a community team.